What is the typical price/length of a syndicated radio news contract?
 

How much do commercial radio stations pay for their "top of the hour"
news from Westwood One or ABC News and how long do those contracts
typically last?

What I can't find out (and I *know* someone in this group will know
for certain):

1) How much would a talk radio station not owned by Infinity or
Disney/ABC in a Top 10 market pay for a contract with Disney to
broadcast ABC News at the top of the hour? How much would that station
pay Westwood One for CBS News briefs? (I know stations like WABC in
NYC and WBAP in Dallas that are *owned* by Disney/ABC obviously have
different contracts for radio news than say, a Cox or Clear
Channel-owned station in Atlanta or Chicago.)

2) How long do these contracts last with Westwood One or Disney/ABC?
For example, the Seattle market has two major commercial talk
stations: KVI and KTTH. KVI acquires their news from Fox News Radio
and caters to a politically conservative audience. KTTH also caters to
that audience, but has ABC News at the top of the hour and is finding
that even their P1s will switch to KVI for 3min at the top of every
hour because they perceive ABC News as being more left of center
politically. The PD for KTTH has publicly stated that they will use
"ABC News for the foreseeable future" but didn't give any indication
as to the length of their contract with Disney/ABC.

3) What are the limitations of re-broadcasting those syndicated news
briefs by radio stations with Internet streaming audio? For example,
can an Infinity-owned radio station with a "click here to listen live"
graphic on their website legally stream the CNN Radio at the top of
every hour or are they blocked the same way that AFTRA rules block the
rebroadcast of Howard Stern over the Internet?

Thanks for the info,

Scott

On 19 Apr 2004 05:22:57 GMT, (Scott McCollum)
wrote:

1) How much would a talk radio station not owned by Infinity or
Disney/ABC in a Top 10 market pay for a contract with Disney to
broadcast ABC News at the top of the hour? How much would that station
pay Westwood One for CBS News briefs? (I know stations like WABC in
NYC and WBAP in Dallas that are *owned* by Disney/ABC obviously have
different contracts for radio news than say, a Cox or Clear
Channel-owned station in Atlanta or Chicago.)

If you're a highly rated station in a major market, they may pay you.
They'll compensate you for the spots they require you to run. A
network spot brings a fraction of what a locally sold spot brings. In
one case you have to be very careful. If you don't meet a required
clearance precentage, you get no compensation at all.

In major markets every contract is different because of the
compensation terms. At WOR we were an ABC Entertainment affiliate but
didn't run the hourly newscasts. We had our own news department, but
used their actualities and wall-to-wall coverage when necessary. We
ran all their spots. Evenings and overnight we ran Mutual hourlys.

When I was at ABC we watched stations very carefully to make sure they
weren't running the network spots in low rated time periods. If we
found you were running our spots overnight your risked losing your
affiliation.

In other markets it's generally barter. You run a certain number of
spots per week for use of the programming.

2) How long do these contracts last with Westwood One or Disney/ABC?

Every contract varies.

For example, the Seattle market has two major commercial talk
stations: KVI and KTTH. KVI acquires their news from Fox News Radio
and caters to a politically conservative audience.

Surely you're joking. We all know that FOX is "fair and balanced" so
it's a cruel accusation to say they're conservative. Roger Ailes will
sue you or get very upset.

The PD for KTTH has publicly stated that they will use
"ABC News for the foreseeable future" but didn't give any indication
as to the length of their contract with Disney/ABC.

What's his alternative? There can't be two "fair and balanced"
stations in the same market. He'll have to figure a way to take FOX
away from KVI.

3) What are the limitations of re-broadcasting those syndicated news
briefs by radio stations with Internet streaming audio? For example,
can an Infinity-owned radio station with a "click here to listen live"
graphic on their website legally stream the CNN Radio at the top of
every hour or are they blocked the same way that AFTRA rules block the
rebroadcast of Howard Stern over the Internet?

It all depends on the policies of the network and the stations. Until
recently, Infinity didn't allow any streaming. ABC used to prohibit
any streaming of its newscasts. There were many cases where
broadcast.com had to black out shows because of network restrictions
on webcasting.

A correction he AFTRA doesn't prohibit anything. Advertising
agencies found that AFTRA wanted their members to be paid for
webcasting if their spots ran in any media other than what they
contracted for. It was the Ad agencies that told stations to remove
their spots from their webcasts. This is the same situation that would
occur if a talent did a TV spot and the advertiser used the audio on
radio. It would cost more. Agencies didn't want to pay for webcasting
where the audience didn't warrant the extra cost.

Rich

Rich Wood wrote in message ...
On 19 Apr 2004 05:22:57 GMT, (Scott McCollum)
wrote:

1) How much would a talk radio station not owned by Infinity or
Disney/ABC in a Top 10 market pay for a contract with Disney to
broadcast ABC News at the top of the hour? How much would that station
pay Westwood One for CBS News briefs? (I know stations like WABC in
NYC and WBAP in Dallas that are *owned* by Disney/ABC obviously have
different contracts for radio news than say, a Cox or Clear
Channel-owned station in Atlanta or Chicago.)

If you're a highly rated station in a major market, they may pay you.
They'll compensate you for the spots they require you to run. A
network spot brings a fraction of what a locally sold spot brings. In
one case you have to be very careful. If you don't meet a required
clearance precentage, you get no compensation at all.

In major markets every contract is different because of the
compensation terms. At WOR we were an ABC Entertainment affiliate but
didn't run the hourly newscasts. We had our own news department, but
used their actualities and wall-to-wall coverage when necessary. We
ran all their spots. Evenings and overnight we ran Mutual hourlys.

When I was at ABC we watched stations very carefully to make sure they
weren't running the network spots in low rated time periods. If we
found you were running our spots overnight your risked losing your
affiliation.

In other markets it's generally barter. You run a certain number of
spots per week for use of the programming.


Since I don't work in radio professionally and I'm just learning about
this business, I'd like to get this correct by repeating what I've
just learned in this forum using the simplest terms:

1. Major market radio stations that are *NOT* owned by a network but
are affiliates don't have to pay for ABC Radio News, any of the
Westwood One news offerings (CBS to CNN), Salem Radio News, or any
other top of the hour news content providers.

2. Smaller markets do not pay for the news either, but rather "barter"
for the content by broadcasting the news content from a provider a
certain number of times during a specified weekly schedule.

If these two statements are basically accurate, I would like to know
how news content providers make money. It almost sounds like radio
stations don't pay for these news briefs at all (almost like a public
service).

My expectation was that a radio station would have contracts to pay
ABC News a fee (that was determined by number of listeners,
demographics, etc.) for broadcasting their news briefs. It sounds like
it's much more complex than that and I'd like to understand why.

2) How long do these contracts last with Westwood One or Disney/ABC?

Every contract varies.

For example, the Seattle market has two major commercial talk
stations: KVI and KTTH. KVI acquires their news from Fox News Radio
and caters to a politically conservative audience.

Surely you're joking. We all know that FOX is "fair and balanced" so
it's a cruel accusation to say they're conservative. Roger Ailes will
sue you or get very upset.

The PD for KTTH has publicly stated that they will use
"ABC News for the foreseeable future" but didn't give any indication
as to the length of their contract with Disney/ABC.

What's his alternative? There can't be two "fair and balanced"
stations in the same market. He'll have to figure a way to take FOX
away from KVI.

Rich

I don't care about the politics; I want to understand the business
thinking in the radio industry:

--Two big radio stations in a top market are vying for a similar
audience.
--Each station wants to differentiate itself by offering their large
target audience content it wants.
--One station is losing business because it's audience does not derive
value from "Content X" while the other station with "Content A" is
gaining business.
--The station with "Content X" wouldn't win over listeners with
"Content Y," "Content Z," or any of the similar offerings.
--Nothing can be gained by having two stations in one market with
"Content A" but why wouldn't the losing station switch from "Content
X" to "Content B" (especially since "Content B" isn't the same as
"Content A" but more closely tracks with what their audience values)?

If a radio station received constant complaints about the network
content and it was driving listeners to another station, why would the
station want to keep its affiliation with a content provider that
everyone hates? Some would say the network pays them too much to *not*
change but wouldn't it hurt the station's bottom line to stay
affliated with a network everyone in town despised?

Thanks for all the information - it's been very helpful.

On 20 Apr 2004 15:14:06 GMT, (Scott McCollum)
wrote:

My expectation was that a radio station would have contracts to pay
ABC News a fee (that was determined by number of listeners,
demographics, etc.) for broadcasting their news briefs. It sounds like
it's much more complex than that and I'd like to understand why.

It's very complex. Barter networks take a number of commercial minutes
each week from the station's inventory, collect all the audience
figures and sell the results to advertisers. When they keep a handle
on where those commercials run, they make a very healthy living.

There's a story that when Grant Tinker came to run NBC he was given a
tour and asked his guide how much the stations paid NBC to run their
programming. When the respectful laughter died down, Mr. Tinker was
told the network paid the stations to run the stuff.

It's known as Comp. (compensation).

Many small market stations can't afford to pay cash for programming,
so they give up some of their commercial inventory and run the
network's commercials. In Talk Radio that can be as much as 50% of the
available inventory in each hour of a show.

There are almost as many configurations as there are stations and it's
a nightmare to administrate.

Rich

On 20 Apr 2004 15:14:06 GMT, (Scott McCollum)
wrote:


Since I don't work in radio professionally and I'm just learning about
this business, I'd like to get this correct by repeating what I've
just learned in this forum using the simplest terms:

1. Major market radio stations that are *NOT* owned by a network but
are affiliates don't have to pay for ABC Radio News, any of the
Westwood One news offerings (CBS to CNN), Salem Radio News, or any
other top of the hour news content providers.

Not only that, the networks pay the stations to run network
commercials.

2. Smaller markets do not pay for the news either, but rather "barter"
for the content by broadcasting the news content from a provider a
certain number of times during a specified weekly schedule.

The "barter" is that they get the news content free in return for
broadcasting the commercials, for which advertisers have paid the
network.


If these two statements are basically accurate, I would like to know
how news content providers make money. It almost sounds like radio
stations don't pay for these news briefs at all (almost like a public
service).

With the exception of the AP Radio Network, which carries no
commercials, the networks are paid by advertisers, just like stations
are. APRN is alone among nets in being a cash-for-content deal,
although even they are now stepping into the barter business, as fewer
and fewer stations are willing to pay cash.


My expectation was that a radio station would have contracts to pay
ABC News a fee (that was determined by number of listeners,
demographics, etc.) for broadcasting their news briefs. It sounds like
it's much more complex than that and I'd like to understand why.

No, ABC charges its advertisers, based on the audience(s) that the
affiliate stations deliver for the commercials.

The concept is not complicated. Networks are an efficient way for
advertisers to get national coverage without having to contract
individually with hundreds of stations. The programming content
supplied by the network (which may be entertainment programming or
news) is provided in return for the stations airing the commercials.
Larger stations get paid some money as well -- but generally far less
than they would get for selling the same spot directly to an
advertiser. The most extreme example I know of in this regard is my
own employer, which was being paid $1 by ABC to run a spot we could
charge $50 for locally (this was 20+ years ago). We dropped ABC in
favor of APRN because it was cheaper for us to buy news than barter
for it, and did not have a commercial network affiliation again until
we bought another station and put a 24/7 ABC music format on it.
It's a niche format we could never afford to do if we had to staff it
ourselves, so this time it makes economic sense.

Mark Howell